


I Saved Every Letter You Wrote Me

by orphan_account



Series: That Which is Lost [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Hamilton References, M/M, pre tfa, song fic of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 14:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7057078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to A Hard Won Trust. </p><p>Poe contemplates how he could have been so blind, how he could have missed what Ben had turned into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Saved Every Letter You Wrote Me

_I saved every_ _letter you wrote me_

_from the moment I read them_

_I knew you were mine,_

_You said you were mine_

_I thought you were mine_

 

Poe had saved every letter Ben had written him. Folded neatly in a leather bound notebook that was nearly bursting at the seams. Hundreds of letters, from the twenty seven page rambling monstrosity he had received at fifteen when Ben had followed his mother on a diplomatic mission and Poe had remained on Yavin, to the scrap of paper containing two words,  _miss you,_ that he had received just two months back. 

_You and your words flooded my senses_

_Your sentences left me defenseless_

_You built me palaces out of paragraphs_

_You built cathedrals_

Ben had always had a way with words in his letters, a confidence that belied the awkwardness that clung to him in person.  His words, his turn of phrase, painted vivid pictures in Poe's imagination, each sweet declaration of sadness over the young pilot's absence in Ben's life strengthened Poe's resolve to tell his friend how he truly felt and cemented his own feelings for the Jedi in training.

And then the last letter came and his whole world collapsed.

_You and your words_

_obsessed with your legacy_

_Your sentences border on senseless_

_And you are paranoid in every paragraph_

_How they perceive you_

"This is my fault," Poe murmured, hand shaking as he read the half finished letter, the broken ramblings about legacy, rage filled sentences filled with fear and paranoia.  How could he have not known, how could he have not seen how far Ben had fallen.

"No one could have predicted this Poe, you cannot blame yourself for Ben's choices," consoled Leia Organa as she sat beside him on the lumpy cot in his room at the Rebublic's barracks.

"But I should have seen it," he protested, the letter crumpling in his grip.  "I should have recognized that something was wrong."  He scoured his thoughts, running through every line of the carefully memorized letters for some sort of sign.  He found nothing.

"Poe, you cannot let this eat away at you, there is nothing you could have done to stop this," a lie, he could have done everything to stop this if he had just been honest with Ben, honest with himself even.

"But, I..." Poe felt the choked off declaration die in his throat.  Saying those words would change nothing, would fix nothing.

Instead he straightened his spine, turned to the General and did what any good soldier would, he requested orders.  "What can I do, what do you need me to do to fix this?"

Leia smiled softly, but the sincerity of it didn't wipe the sadness from her eyes as she spoke.  "You will stay here and wait.  The Republic needs you for now, but there will come a day when I will need you to choose between doing what is right and following orders."  She laid a gentle hand over his, calm and collected as she spoke despite the horrors visited on her family in the last few days.  "When that time comes I promise I will be there for you."

Poe nodded, "and the other letters?"

"Burn them Poe, the world has no right to know what the two of you meant to each other.  Burn them, grieve what you have lost and make your peace with it."

And so he would.

_I hope that you burn_

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
